Backup computer data

Your final line of defense against damage caused by a hacker or other
computer failure is to have good backups of your data files. In some
cases, a hacker will deliberately or accidentally erase the files from
your disk. Your whole computer could be lost or stolen. Or your disk
could suffer a hardware fail, causing loss of data. You could be in
serious trouble if the only copy of your research data, latest paper,
thesis, or grant proposal was among the lost files.

If you are not eligible for the School's backup services, you can take
independent steps to protect yourself.

You can purchase an external hard drive to use as a backup device for
your computer. Just remember to connect it to your computer often so
your backup program can work!
Apple Macintosh computers have a built-in backup program named
Time Machine
that is very effective at maintaining backups of your files, including
previous versions, on an external disk.
Most external hard drives also come with backup programs designed to work on
Microsoft Windows PCs.

If you are an undergraduate student in Earth Sciences, you can
ask the system managers
to create a personal "home share" for you on
the School's high performance file server named
sesfs.stanford.edu.
You can store up to 10 Gigabytes of files in your home share.
Use this home share to keep copies of your important data and files.
In fact, if you work primarily on campus, file server access is fast
enough that you can keep the master copy on the server and work on it
directly from your computer.

Another simple defense for your most important data and files, such as your
thesis draft, is to buy a USB flash memory stick which you periodically
connect to your computer and copy over your essential files.
As of the date of this note, four gigabyte sized flash memory sticks
are available from discount retailers for as little as $5.
But don't make the mistake of a student that was publicized in the
Stanford Daily.
She kept her backup flash memory stick in the same
case as her laptop and both were stolen. She had no other copies of
her senior thesis. Keep this essential backup separate from your
computer!

There are also internet based backup services that you can use
to automatically backup files from your personal computer for
free or a small fee. For example, check the services described in
this recent MacWorld article.

There are many options for backup. The important thing is to
start a backup program now!